When it comes to choosing the right hardware for Digital Signage: Your CMS should come first

By Veronica Ong, Sales Director Broadsign SEA

When purchasing a new computer or upgrading your existing system, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of choosing the latest hardware based on factors like cost and appearance – perhaps a dazzling display with a sleek form factor or a media player that’s touted as “the latest and greatest.”

While hardware manufacturers often make the decision easier by providing a wealth of performance benchmarks and throwing in free software for network monitoring and content management, choosing hardware without knowing what type of software you’ll be running could lead to wasted investment, especially when certain tasks require specialized applications.

And in the OOH advertising space, the true backbone of your digital signage network is the content management system (CMS) where the real efficiency, flexibility, and scalability of your network come from.

Advertisers are becoming more demanding due to shrinking budgets, and media owners are increasingly having to adopt complicated software tools to meet those demands (complex scheduling requirements, proof of play reporting, audience data analytics, programmatic).

Media owners need to know whether their machines can handle high-resolution graphics, processing needs, and memory requirements and how content is managed, delivered, and displayed in real time.

The CMS dictates much of a network’s functionality: how frequently content can be updated, how multimedia elements (live-streaming, HTML files) perform, and how easy it is to integrate with other platforms (e.g., video analytics, programmatic supply-side platforms).

Large-format, high-resolution screens are often accompanied by large content file sizes that run into tens of gigabytes. Does the CMS have pre-buffering features so that the content gets downloaded beforehand before it gets played to avoid those few seconds of black screen?

The sheer diversity and demands of modern software, especially enterprise solutions, mean that selecting the right hardware based on the software you want to run is a crucial first step. Certain CMS platforms might be optimized for specific operating systems (e.g., ARM-based systems with Android operating systems vs. x86-based Microsoft Windows devices). If the software doesn’t support the hardware you’ve chosen, you may face limitations in resolution or content playback performance.

If you have plans for future scalability, such as expanding the number of displays or increasing content complexity, choosing the right CMS with a scalable architecture ensures that your network will be able to handle more complex content, multiple locations, and additional devices in the future.

Therefore it is important to fully understand the CMS’s current and future capabilities, and ensuring that the software you need is compatible with the hardware you’re purchasing is an important step in the decision-making process.

Another common mistake is purchasing hardware based on the immediate capabilities without considering how that hardware will hold up, as software becomes more resource-intensive over time. Software updates and future versions of applications can have higher demands. A CMS that runs fine on your machine today may require a more powerful processor in the future as developers add more features requiring higher computational complexity. If you select hardware based solely on its specifications today, you could find yourself struggling with poor performance as software continues to evolve.

By prioritizing software needs, you ensure that your system not only meets today’s demands but remains adaptable for future growth. Investing in the right CMS and compatible hardware from the start will save time, money, and frustration, ensuring long-term efficiency and a seamless digital signage experience

Not sure which hardware will work best for your network? Broadsign’s industry-leading CMS is trusted by the largest media owners and retailers globally, and we can help you choose the ideal hardware for flawless performance. Reach out to us today, and let’s build a future-proof digital signage network together.